Here’s Leif pretending to take a picture of me with the tripod while we get set up.

Here’s a few examples of the pictures we took. You can see all of them on by clicking on any of the pictures to go to my flickr page.

This was obviously a really fun time but it’s also been a remarkable way to help Lily become a little more sophisticated in compassionate communication. It’s a great way to become introduced to what certain feelings look like and what they mean. It makes it easier for her to then observe these feelings in others. Since the first poster I’ve noticed Lily’s grown a great deal in this regard.

Awesome! And when I say awesome I am referring to both Lily faces (and emotional literacy) as well as the beauty of the pics (I especially like the red and shade of blue in the background, together). Great work!

Coming up with a number of feelings before hand was important. We wrote out a list together. Lily came up with a couple and the ones I thought of I checked with her that she knew what they were and wanted to do it. It’s good to have the list because in the moment we’re having so much fun that I kept forgetting what feelings we next wanted to do.

When we were actually taking the pictures I’d say, “what does MAD look like to you” or “can you show me how you look when you’re excited”. She just ran with it and I have a few versions for most of the feelings. A couple times I suggested, like repulsed, I thought it might look like the hands out but not totally covering the face and maybe smelling something awful- like the fish rendering plant we sometimes smell here! Yuck!

We did do it all in one sitting and it took a little while because of random jumping around, crazy faces, Leif stepping into the pictures, Lily making faces at Leif instead of the camera…. it was really fun. I had taped a line in front of the books under the chair and in front of the tripod in anticipation of moving around so it wouldn’t be noticed in the pictures. If only we really did have a second shooter to capture the behind the scenes. It was the first time I used my old tripod and I was scared to leave the camera on it so I didn’t leave while we were shooting.

Thanks so much for all your comments! You all should consider doing one too. Again, it was fun but what we got out of it in connecting with each other and learning about what feelings look like was really amazing.

This is so great! It looks like you had so much fun- it’s nice that Lily is so game to do this- maybe its the age, but my guy hardly lets me take any pictures of him at all!
hey, are you going to the skeena swim event next saturday? we are thinking of going- maybe we’ll see you there!

Just found your blog today and love it! Your children are gorgeous and your daughter’s expressions are priceless… I love this idea. Thanks for the english muffin recipe, too! My husband loves eggs benedict!

I just found your blog, and even after only reading a couple of posts, I really like it! I’m a happily unschooled older teen, and I always love finding new unschooling blogs. I also absolutely LOVE your empathy poster, and it looks like it was tons of fun for you guys to do! :-)

I doubt Lily will ever tire of having her picture taken! Leif doesn’t feel the same though. Sigh. Maybe he’s enjoy it more as he gets older, maybe not. It’d be fun to do a poster with him too, maybe with less sophisticated emotions. Not sure he’d be into it though.

Taimarie- I’ll look into the skeena swim. I think we were planning on going out to our property then so we would be in the area! What a great idea! I’ll let you know and maybe we can meet and say hi!

The swim ends on Saturday in Prince Rupert, so we could cross paths- or maybe wave to each other as we pass on the highway! If you decide to stick around, I think it will be a cool event. I’m hoping the driving goes okay, my kiddos have been resisting the car lately. But it would be fun to meet you if it worked out!

I like the new one! Great colors.
I have several series of photos like this because my daughter, now 4.5, has typically preferred any other facial expression except smiling. So to get a smile I yell out the names of expressions and she makes them. Eventually, after a few ‘mad’ and ‘sad’ and ‘mean’ she’ll hand over a smile or two.

Question: How do you get the template? How can we make the actual group of photos?

Hi,
I`m a teacher of English and would love to use your idea of the poster with my students + share it with fellow teachers. I`d like to ask if you wouldn`t object to me showing them this lovely poster of yours as an example?